Three residents of the Kamianets-Podilskyi district of Khmelnytskyi region will be tried for illegal mining of clay shale in the Podilski Tovtry National Nature Park.
The offenders were detained while trying to sell the stones, the press service of the Khmelnytsky Regional Prosecutor's Office reports.
"According to the investigation, from November 2022 to June 2023, the defendants organized the extraction of minerals without a special permission to use the subsoil," the report says.
It is noted that the defendants were selling clay shale mined in Podilski Tovtry. During the authorized searches, law enforcement officers seized the tools of the crime, cash, stones of clay shale, and mobile phones.
The press service said that the offenders are accused of illegal mining of minerals of national importance committed by an organized group at the site of the nature reserve fund (Part 4 of Article 240 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
Podilski Tovtry were formed on the site of a barrier reef of the former Tortoise and Sarmatian Seas (14-25 million years ago). It is the largest in Ukraine and one of the largest national parks in Europe. It is also one of the seven natural wonders of Ukraine.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that eco-activists are demanding from the State Geology and Subsoil Service to cancel the auction for the sale of the "Mak" deposit in the Rivne region for peat extraction. On a plot of 260 hectares, a wetland forest has been preserved in its natural state, even without damage from illegal amber mining.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, in Zakarpattia region the director of one of the forest farms was informed of suspicion for organizing extraction of sand-gravel mixture from the Teresva River using his official position.
